ESSENTIALS

Ashford Castle’s Taste of the West of Ireland private, daylong Extraordinary Experiences itineraries cost from €2,500 (£2,190) for two people together and €250 per additional guest, up to a maximum of six. Rates include transport, guide and lunch. Doubles at Ashford Castle cost from €325, including breakfast. For information including how to book, visit ashfordcastle.com; for more on what to see and do in the country visit ireland.com. promise in the air,” he said in reference to the softening weather as we set off on the first dry day to follow Storm Jorge, though the statement tallied just as well with the encounters awaiting us.

To ensure availability and proximity to whatever other experiences guests might choose, the hotel has partnered with two local independent soda bread bakers. My teacher Orla, who lives in a converted 200-year-old church with a graveyard in its grounds, had just taken her own morning loaves from the oven when we called at her door. The aroma wrapped us in nostalgia and we slipped into easy conversation about family, home and tradition as I made my own loaf at her kitchen table.

Given I can just about manage to boil water and had never actually attempted to join my grandmother in her breadmaking endeavours, it turned out to be a good thing that baking soda bread couldn’t be easier. While making the likes of sourdough takes an awful lot of effort, all I really needed to do was chuck the ingredients in a bowl, add buttermilk and mix. In fact, with the oven preheated and the ingredients I needed already laid out, preparation only took seven or so minutes. Slowly churning the batter by hand took on a meditative quality for me – Orla and I agreed there was something soothing and therapeutic to it, and I was pleased to be taught something I could so easily integrate into life back home.

While my bread baked, we ate her still-warm batch and homemade lemon cake, chatting about this and that as shards of light beamed through the old church windows and her Irish wolfhound dozed by the turf fire. It was a very normal, everyday occasion that felt completely lovely.

When it was time to leave, my freshly baked loaf was presented to me, swaddled in cotton. I set it on my lap like a hot water bottle and we drove on, with Eoin indicating points of interest in East Galway, a part of Ireland rarely visited by tourists or even locals like me who grew up less than an hour away in Galway city.

One impromptu pit stop took us over a stone wall and on to a deserted cairn, an ancient burial mound, believed to be almost 5,000 years old. Elsewhere, we ambled to a holy well where an inconspicuous spread of white stones indicated that we were at a ceallunach, a more recent burial site for unbaptised babies. That was the starting point for an altogether sadder conversation about Ireland’s history; another opportunity for reflection.

So many hotels claim they’re all about engaging with the community, but in reality it’s rare for them to get the balance right. For all its simplicity, this day out moved me. I look forward to following Orla’s super-simple bread recipe at home and recalling those memories, and expect this will be an experience I’ll look back upon fondly for many years to come.